The Russian birch is deliciously beautiful. Slender, elegant, mournful: whatever the mood of the Russian skies, the birch has something of the Russian soul. "Charming, modest birches, I love them better than any other trees," says Vershinin in Chekhov's The Three Sisters. The birch features in the work of so many Russian artists. For Isaak Levitan, a good friend of Chekhov, the birch is slight, lyrical, elvene; birches feature in a score of his paintings. For other Russian landscape artists, the playful birch with its pink tinged bark offsets the gravitas of the country's great tracts of dark coniferous forest.
Zagreb street art
When you paint something on the street, it is no longer your own. It becomes public property. Street art demands of artists that they 'let go', that they have the courage to relinquish ownership of their work. Rudolf Abraham takes a look at the ...
